Who or what is Terrorism??

[Risto 0]

Oh really? And who started this again? I am very sorry for the Israelis who didn’t finish the job in 1982.

I hope they learned the lesson

Is she a terrorist or victim?

she is a victim of the terrorists just like the Israeli children in their beds at a bomb shelter

Is she a terrorist or victim?

she is a victim of the terrorists just like the Israeli children in their beds at a bomb shelter

How wonderful for all of us that we can sit here behind out computer screen and discuss/debate/argue/fight over the politics of it all while those people are stuck in the middle of it. Future TV is airing live coverage and I'll tell you it's pretty hard to be sympathetic and understanding on behald of the Israelis when the hospital staff in Lebanon is piling dead babies up on the floor, covered in blankets, for lack of room to store the bodies!

she is a victim of the terrorists just like the Israeli children in their beds at a bomb shelter

[Luvinmybaby 0]

Speaking to the Christians of this discussion. Does anyone see the coming war of armageddon starting here? It seems that this is the predictions of the book of revelations are coming.

Please, before the non-christians start another flame thread on me for this I am just asking the Christians this.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Speaking to the Christians of this discussion. Does anyone see the coming war of armageddon starting here? It seems that this is the predictions of the book of revelations are coming.

Please, before the non-christians start another flame thread on me for this I am just asking the Christians this.

I wonder if people thought that at the start of the last 2 world wars...

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Speaking to the Christians of this discussion. Does anyone see the coming war of armageddon starting here? It seems that this is the predictions of the book of revelations are coming.

Please, before the non-christians start another flame thread on me for this I am just asking the Christians this.

I wonder if people thought that at the start of the last 2 world wars...

This is different because the Jews now have an established state of Israel. According to many of the Christian Fundamentalists, the beginning of the end of the world is suppose to happen when when the Jewish people (Israel) are attacked on their home land. However, most biblical scholars agree that John's Book of Revelation should not be taken so literally. From what I understand, John was really talking about the Jewish people finally removing the yoke of the Roman Empire from around their neck. One can conclude that John was right because the Roman Empire eventually embraced Christianity and later crumbled.

What is more frightening is that we have a President who believes in a literal interpretation of that prophecy.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

This is different because the Jews now have an established state of Israel. According to many of the Christian Fundamentalists, the beginning of the end of the world is suppose to happen when when the Jewish people (Israel) are attacked on their home land. However, most biblical scholars agree that John's Book of Revelation should not be taken so literally. From what I understand, John was really talking about the Jewish people finally removing the yoke of the Roman Empire from around their neck. One can conclude that John was right because the Roman Empire eventually embraced Christianity and later crumbled.

Certainly this has the smell of a major crisis. If this conflict spills over into an outright war with Syria and Iran, the US (and others) will inevitably intervene on Israel's behalf - in which event you have to wonder where Russia and China would stand on that. If we think we've got problems now with Iraq and Afghanistan....

What is more frightening is that we have a President who believes in a literal interpretation of that prophecy.

I'm torn about that. I think we've seen enough over the last 5-6 years to really wonder whether or not GWB holds true to the christian belief system, prostituting his values (as he does) as a political tool, but conveniently abandoning them when they conflict with the interests of big business. He's not alone in that - to be fair. But still far from the principled leader he claims to be.

I have my own views on christianity in the US, which I think differs quite a lot in some regards from Europe. It wasn't until I moved here that I saw, for example, God TV channels. We have a couple of those in the UK, but the US ones are alien by comparison. Seeing people crying and speaking in tongues makes me extremely uncomfortable and (to me) gives validation to the view that some US christian denominations owe more to old testament Judaism than to Christianity. I would hope however, that they are not representative as a whole, of christianity in the US.

Edited July 16, 2006 by erekose

[almaty 19]

one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter ...

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I have my own views on christianity in the US, which I think differs quite a lot in some regards from Europe. It wasn't until I moved here that I saw, for example, God TV channels. We have a couple of those in the UK, but the US ones are alien by comparison. Seeing people crying and speaking in tongues makes me extremely uncomfortable and (to me) gives validation to the view that some US christian denominations owe more to old testament Judaism than to Christianity. I would hope however, that they are not representative as a whole, of christianity in the US.

Yes. Christian Fundamentalism is only one type of view. Unfortunately, it currently has a stranglehold on most American Christian Churches in varying degrees. Their basic premise is that the written text of the Bible was inspired by God, that the Bible is thus a record of the actual, words of God, and that it therefore can be trusted to be infallible in all its details.

And alarmingly, the results of a recent national poll in which 47 percent of active Protestants agreed with the statement that "everything in the Bible should be taken literally, word for word." In the same study, 48 percent of active Protestants disagreed with the statement that "the Bible may contain historical or scientific errors." (http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=230)

GWB is a self professed Born Again Christian. I'm Catholic and I remember when I was a kid in the 70's, my next door neighbors who were Baptist had these bumper stickers on their car that said, "Warning: In the event of the Rapture, the driver of this car may disappear." There was this movement about the Rapture back then which was quite a literal approach to the Book of Revelations. That's when I first heard about the beginning of the end will be when Israel is attacked.

Edited July 16, 2006 by Steven_and_Jinky

[dalegg 143]

Speaking to the Christians of this discussion. Does anyone see the coming war of armageddon starting here? It seems that this is the predictions of the book of revelations are coming.

Please, before the non-christians start another flame thread on me for this I am just asking the Christians this.

Well, by the end of this century if we are taken by a combination of a Bird Flu Pandemic, an Ice Age, Iran and North Korea launching Nukes, illegal immigration, IMBRA, and any number of pending catastophes detailed by the Discovery Channel, it's going to feel like Armageddon. With the Jews having returned to Israel prior to all of these events it does make me take a moment to think.

[*Robert* 2]

[...]I remember when I was a kid in the 70's, my next door neighbors who were Baptist had these bumper stickers on their car that said, "Warning: In the event of the Rapture, the driver of this car may disappear." There was this movement about the Rapture back then which was quite a literal approach to the Book of Revelations. That's when I first heard about the beginning of the end will be when Israel is attacked.

I remember those bumper stickers as well, which really made me start wondering about my faith, or lack of!

Erekose brings up a good question... if this does escalate, and more countries are drug into this... what side do people think that Russia and China will take? Is either country more aligned with the Arabs? Russia isn't exactly economically healthy right now, and I don't see how they could afford to get involved. China on the other hand, might just very well not care! Why should they? They are sitting on top of all the oil they need, as are the Russians... they just don't know how to get it out of the ground!

[Veiled Princess 1]

Erekose brings up a good question... if this does escalate, and more countries are drug into this... what side do people think that Russia and China will take? Is either country more aligned with the Arabs? Russia isn't exactly economically healthy right now, and I don't see how they could afford to get involved. China on the other hand, might just very well not care! Why should they? They are sitting on top of all the oil they need, as are the Russians... they just don't know how to get it out of the ground!

Is China and Korea the same thing? Don't they hate us? We keep China's economy alive though so I don't think they'd mess with us. After all, everything in America is made in China

Of course they might not like the idea that we tell everyone else in the world what to do with their nations and they might wonder if they're next so they could very well side with Iran and the Arab countries.

I'm going to go live in a cave or under a rock somewhere.... this is getting out of countrol

[Risto 0]

Don’t think about the end of the world today, it’s already tomorrow in Australia.

[Fuzzness 2]

she is a victim of the terrorists just like the Israeli children in their beds at a bomb shelter

ahhh.... i get it now... palestinians don't have children. great ok, big deal, lets just wait for them to get old and die and there won't be any more left.

[mawilson 2,133]

Russia isn't exactly economically healthy right now, and I don't see how they could afford to get involved.

Russia isn't economically healthy? Wake up and smell the coffee man. Russia is the new

energy superpower flush with oil and gas money. They have hard currency reserves of at

least $250 billion, and this year they will use $22 billion of that to to repay their entire

Soviet-era debt to the Paris Club of creditor nations ahead of schedule.